The former general director of the defunct Andalusian Foundation for Training and Employment, better known as Faffe, Fernando Villén Rueda, admitted this Monday to having hired “by hand”, without carrying out a selection process, former socialist mayor of Lebrija Antonio Torres García as director of external relations or resources of the entity of the Junta de Andalucía because it had a “reputation” and a “formidable” agenda of contacts with administrations and public entities.
Villén said Torres’ experience and program made it possible to raise funds outside the Andalusian government to finance activities. He indicated during the trial that the third section of the Seville Provincial Court is filing a complaint against both of them for prevarication and embezzlement. in the “arbitrary” hiring of the aforementioned former advisor in July 2003, after having been a municipal councilor for 24 years in this Sevillian municipality.
Questioned by the anti-corruption prosecutor, Fernando Soto, on the personnel selection process of the dissolved Faffe, the former director of the Faffe justified that he had not used the usual recruitment channels because “I was looking for the quickest way.” He explained that the foundation was in great need of funding at that time, because it lacked additional transfers from the Junta de Andalucía, when this body dedicated to offering training courses to the unemployed was created in 2003, and that it operated until May 2003.
Previously, the former general director of the old foundation told the court that the only rule that governed the selection of personnel in the early days of Faffe was the state law on foundations, because an Andalusian rule had not been established than in 2005 or 2006. There were three ways to select personnel, as specified: the web portal for the foundation’s employees, through calls for tenders from the Andalusian Employment Service (SAE) and through announcements in the press when there was “desperation” to fill a certain position. But none of them were used in the case of Torres because he considered it more agile to hire him directly, as he later confirmed at the request of the Andalusian government lawyer.
During the session, Fernando Villén confirmed that Torres did not have a physical office in Faffe because he did not consider it necessary due to the type of work he carried out. He also targeted his superior, the former Minister of Employment. Thus, he confirmed that he had “requested authorization” for the hiring of Torres from the president of the board of directors of the foundation, who was the Minister of Employment and Technological Development of the Council between 2000 and 2004, José Antonio Viera.
In this context, the former boss of Faffe recalled that it was the former socialist mayor of Lebrija himself who contacted him to offer his services in June 2003. “He comes to see me via a call to my secretary. We had a conversation“, he recalled. At that meeting, Torres asked Villén if he was “interested in his services and experience” as a former Lebrija advisor. “Mr. Torres does not need much introduction, because he was very well known,” added this former senior civil servant, who was Secretary of Employment of the regional direction of the PSOE between 2008 and 2010.
During the interrogation by the Prosecutor’s Office, Fernando Villén detailed that Torres fue “was assigned to me directlyto the team that worked with me and which was made up of three people” and who was also not summoned to the steering committee.
The prosecution claims Fernando Villén four years in prison for an alleged offense of embezzlement and ten years a special ban for a possible offense of prevarication; while for the former mayor of Lebrija, he demands two and a half years in prison for embezzlement and four years of disqualification for alleged prevarication.
According to the order transforming the procedure into an abbreviated procedure in this case, after losing the Lebrija mayoralty in the 2003 municipal elections after 24 years in power, Antonio Torres allegedly asked the then technical general director of the Fundación Andaluza Fondo Training and employment his “placement with Faffe, to which Villén accepted, promoting a new management position in his favor“, non-existent in reality, which would satisfy the permanent hiring and salary conditions requested” by the former socialist mayor of Lebrija.
All this, despite the fact that Torres García “did not have the training and skills necessary to assume functions corresponding to said professional level” of manager, the judge clarified.
Thus, and according to the investigating judge, the former mayor of Lebrija “was hired on July 1, 2003 with a temporary contract, extended and transformed into an indefinite duration with an effective date of December 1, 2004, as manager, with a total remuneration of 46,750 euros per year, and was registered as an employee with Faffe until his termination of employment and his integration in May 2011 with the Andalusian Employment Service (SAE).
